Pit Workers in the Old Days #1 (Raccoon Dog; Badger)
1958 - 1963
Mukashi no Yamabito #1 (Tanuki; Anaguma)
[Pit Workers in the Old Days #1 (Raccoon Dog; Badger)]
21.0 x 35.6 cm Ink Painting
Since the slopes of the pits around 1900 were not so deeply driven, a raccoon dog appeared in the No.1 and No.2 levels near the surface of Kamimio Coal Pit run by Mr. Aso and threatened the miners. It did not appear in the daytime. It was always the lonely hours after midnight when only two or three second shift workers were left that the raccoon dog appeared. It played tricks on them, making sounds mimicking a roof fall, a mine car being pushed, a walking person, the roaring of running water and so on. It is said that it transformed itself into a pillar when it was found by the miners and driven into a corner. The pillar stood on its bottom without a wedge (kamisashi). It was an upside-down pillar in the pit. A brave man found it immediately, though it had turned its paws and legs into knots.
I still cannot forget the mining sounds made by the raccoon dog, which I heard in the night when I entered the pit with my father during the summer holidays as a boy. An old miner said that the mining sounds fabricated by the raccoon dog lacked the sound of a pickax being dragged and that the sounds that resembled a moving mine car lacked the creaking sound between the rails and wheels or the clinking sound made by swinging coupling chains (chain hangers were not used in the past). In some regions, the raccoon dog was called an anaguma (badger), which is a little different from the raccoon dog and its skin was used as the packing for bellows, or an ujina (mujina). It sounds strange and ridiculous that this raccoon dog deceives and fools people. However, there is no doubt that it is true because these descriptions were based on realities in the past.
Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro
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